-
Phylloxera: The American Grape Vine Pest That Almost Ruined My Saturday Nights
Can you imagine a world without French wine? A world without the wines of Champagne, Bordeaux, Burgundy and Provence? A world in which French people don’t look down their nose at the wines of the rest of the world? Is such a world even possible? Well, in the late 19th century this is exactly the… Continue reading
-
Vanilla II: The Curing and the Chemistry
When we left vanilla in the last post, the French had finally broken the Spanish monopoly and were beginning to establish a vanilla industry in Madagascar and French Polynesia. Normally when a monopoly is broken prices come down as supply increases and the monopolist loses control over pricing. While this was partly the case with… Continue reading
